Why Does the Old Testament Feel So Hard for So Many Good People?
Many faithful readers begin the Old Testament with quiet anxiety. The stories feel foreign. The laws feel severe. God can seem distant, reactive, or harsh. For Latter-day Saints, this discomfort is often intensified by familiarity with Jesus Christ’s compassion in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The question beneath the surface is simple and honest: Is the God of the Old Testament the same God we worship today?
Dear friends,
This week matters because how we answer that question determines how we read everything that follows. If we begin with suspicion, we will read defensively. If we begin with trust, we will read receptively. The introduction to the Old Testament is not about dates, authorship, or ancient names. It is about learning how scripture itself expects to be read.
What Is Happening in the Old Testament as a Whole
The Old Testament is not a random collection of ancient religious writings. It is a covenant record shaped over centuries by a people trying to understand their relationship with God across creation, failure, deliverance, exile, and hope. Its dominant question is not “How do I behave well enough for God?” but “How and why does God remain faithful to people who repeatedly struggle to trust Him?”
Ancient Israel preserved these texts because they believed God had bound Himself to them through a covenant of hesed. Covenant in the ancient world was relational and enduring. It created belonging, obligation, and shared future. The Old Testament tells the story of a God who commits Himself to people and then patiently teaches them what that relationship requires over time.
The structure of the Old Testament reflects this purpose. Narrative teaches identity. Law teaches belonging. Prophecy calls people back when covenant loyalty frays. Wisdom literature trains daily trust. All of it assumes that God initiates relationship and sustains it across generations, even when human faithfulness wavers. This is hesed.
What This Reveals About God
Before Israel obeys, God creates. Before Israel understands, God commits. Before Israel succeeds, God stays. This is the essence of the God revealed in the Old Testament. This is hesed.
From the opening chapters onward, God reveals Himself as relational, patient, and deeply invested in His people’s future. He speaks. He promises. He accompanies. He corrects. He restores. This is covenantal love in action, not sentimental affection, but loyal, costly, enduring commitment. This is hesed.
God’s actions consistently move toward people rather than away from them. He works with families, not abstractions. He adapts His teaching to human capacity. He absorbs the cost of continued relationship. Judgment, when it appears, functions within this relational framework. It addresses broken trust, not divine irritation. This is also hesed.
Reading the Old Testament well begins by recognizing that God’s character of hesed is consistent. His methods adjust to context, culture, and maturity, but His intent remains steady. He seeks to form a people who know Him and trust Him. This is hesed.
So What Does This Mean for Us
If the Old Testament is a covenant story, then scripture study is not about mining verses for rules. It is about learning how God works with real people over time. That matters for disciples who live with unanswered prayers, uneven growth, and imperfect obedience.
This introduction invites us to read with patience, both toward the text and toward ourselves. God’s covenant work unfolds gradually. He teaches line upon line, not because He is inefficient, but because relationship requires formation. The Old Testament legitimizes the long process of becoming faithful.
For modern disciples, this reframes spiritual life. Faithfulness looks less like flawlessness and more like continued turning toward God. Covenant trust grows through repeated engagement, even when understanding lags behind experience.
How to Read This Year With New Eyes
As you begin the Old Testament this year, read with four lenses active:
Watch who initiates action in the stories. Notice how often God moves first.
Pay attention to covenant language or words such as promise, remembrance, inheritance, truth, keep, observe, oath, bless, law, commandment, covenant, statute, judgment, witness, testimony, people, and mercy.
Remember and look for expressions of God’s character, as expressed in His divine autobiography of Exodus 34:6-7. Mercy, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth.
Read entire units of scripture rather than isolated verses. Meaning emerges through context and patterns.
Ask one guiding question each week: What does this passage teach me about how God stays committed to people over time?
Suggested next step: Read the opening pages of Genesis this week with the single goal of watching how God relates to people before you look for what He asks of them.
—Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.
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